13 Belfast Film Festival Events You Shouldn’t Miss This Summer

From outdoor picnic screenings to a Georgian mansion, a ProKick gym, T13 and the Giant’s Ring, Belfast Film Festival promises a summer of unique and unforgettable experiences in parks and buildings throughout the city.

1. Movie & a Picnic

Lower Crescent Park, 6-7 August

Experience the romances and adventures of all-singing, all-dancing high school kids in Grease. Or you can sing-a-long to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s cinematic treasure, The Sound of Music. Or why not fall in love with dance instructor Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing? And find out how a very ordinary man is mistaken for the promised messiah in Monty Python’s Life of Brian!

2. Romeo and Juliet

Lower Crescent Park, 6 August

Franco Zeffirelli’s acclaimed adaptation of Shakespeare’s timeless love story, Romeo and Juliet, was nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award in 1967. When the now famous “star-crossed lovers” of two enemy families meet, forbidden love ensues.

3. Much Ado About Nothing

Lower Crescent Park, 6 August

Kenneth Branagh’s love for the material is contagious in his exuberant adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, a spirited, winningly acted rendition of one of the Bard’s most popular comedies.

4. Chimes at Midnight

Lower Crescent Park, 7 August

Orson Welles is at the height of his both his acting and directorial powers while reveling in the poetic force of Falstaff’s weakness in Chimes at Midnight.

5. Mean Girls

The Black Box, 13 August

Celebrate the horror and the hilarity of the Prom with Tina Fey’s brilliantly smart satire Mean Girls at the Black Box. Formerly home-schooled Cady (Lindsay Lohan) gets dropped into the sneaky, vicious world of the Plastics, three adolescent glamour-girls who dominate their public high school’s social hierarchy.

There will be classic prom movie clips before the main feature and everyone is invited to dress up in their favourite prom costumes, with cocktails and prizes available for the most plastic fantastic attire of the night.

6. Mamma Mia!

The Black Box, 14 August

The delirious sight of Meryl Streep leading a river of multigenerational women in singing “Dancing Queen” is one of the high points of the musical built around the songs of the hugely successful pop group ABBA.

7. Sense and Sensibility

Malone House, 21 August

The grounds of Malone House, a late Georgian mansion which dates from the 1820s, provides the perfect backdrop for an outdoor screening of Sense and Sensibility. Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant star in this captivating romantic comedy based on Jane Austen’s classic novel.

8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Campbell College, 27 August

The beautiful Victorian central hall of Campbell College boarding school will conjure up associations of Hogwarts and the world of Harry Potter. The Great Hall of Christchurch College was the inspiration for Hogwarts and Campbell College has a very similar feel.

Dressing up is encouraged with prizes for the best costume at this special screening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in association with Campbell College and Into Film.

9. Aliens and The Matrix

T13, 24 & 25 August

The industrial urban space at T13 in Titanic Quarter will help to create an edgy atmosphere for two sci-fi classics – Ridley Scott’s Aliens and The Matrix.

10. Con-Air, Ulster Aviation Society

1 September

The location for high-octane Nicolas Cage action film Con-Air, about a daring escape from a prisoner transport plane, could not be more fitting – amongst the Spitfires and other heroes of the skies in an Ulster Aviation Society hangar close to the site of the old Maze prison.

11. Enter The Dragon

Billy Murray’s kickboxing gym, 3 September

Get up close and sweaty with other action movie lovers as Bruce Lee martial-arts classic Enter the Dragon will be screened in Billy Murray’s kickboxing gym in East Belfast.

12. Pitch Perfect

Grand Opera House, 4 September

Prepare to sing-a-long at the 2008 comedy starring Rebel Wilson and Anna Kendrick that will be hitting the high notes at the Grand Opera House.

13. The Wicker Man

The Giant’s Ring, 17 September

The prehistoric circular enclosure of the Giant’s Ring near Shaw’s Bridge is the atmospheric location for classic 1973 horror flick The Wicker Man.